


A Murder of Crowes

by winethroughwater



Category: Carnivale
Genre: F/M, Original Character(s), Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 20:29:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6165816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winethroughwater/pseuds/winethroughwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "In a Pickle."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Murder of Crowes

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't quite ready to quit playing in this particular AU sandbox just yet.

Even though he's only been swimming a handful of times, he's sure he can beat the other boy to the far side of the creek.

 

  
He's at least a foot ahead of him when a pain swallows him up like he's been caught under one of the wheels of the Carnivale's heaviest trucks and crushed right in half.

 

It's a pain so big that he opens his mouth to scream but sucks in a lungful of water instead.

  
  
When he opens his eyes in the dark, he sees his brother’s face reflected back.  It's been months now since he's seen him and he reaches out, but when someone grabs him, he struggles against them.

 

Michael disappears and the sun light burns his eyes when he surfaces.

 

He’s been pulled out of the water by one of his father's men, he realizes.  His brother was never there.

 

He coughs until he vomits and lays shivering on the shore surrounded by unfamiliar faces until eventually his papa is there to wrap him in his coat and scoop him up in his arms.

  
  
He doesn’t protest being carried like this--even though it’s really for babies and people are watching.  He likes how tall his papa is, even if everyone thinks he is just his uncle. He likes how tall _he_ seems when he sees the world from this height and how the people just clear the way for them without even being told.

  
  
The starched material of papa’s collar is rough against his cheek but the black fabric of his coat is soaking in the sun and trapping it around him until his teeth chatter a little less.

  
  
He doesn’t cry.

  
  
He would have cried if they’d given him to mama instead.

 

* * *

  
Papa strips his wet clothes off him and dresses him in his pajamas even though it is the middle of the day. He bundles the quilt from his bed around him and they sit together on the edge of the unmade bed without talking.

  
Finally he admits, "It hurt."

  
  
Instead of telling him to be strong, that this is what he was born for, his papa says, "I know."

  
  
"Do you think he knows that it hurts me?"

  
  
"I don’t know. Would you hurt him?"

  
  
He hates that he has to think about it before answering.  He pictures the bird he had killed and remembers how hard he had tried to bring it back. Would he have made Michael hurt to see the bird fly away again?

  
  
"No," he answers and that's probably the truth.

  
  
"Justin--"

  
  
His lower lip quivers at the sound of her voice despite his resolution not to cry.

  
  
“He’s fine. It was just an accident,” his father lies, so he lies too and says, “The water was deeper than I thought.”

  
  
She still sits on the other side of him and looks him over like she doesn’t believe either one of them.

  
  
She finally kisses him on his cheeks, his forehead, his nose--she leans over and kisses his papa on the mouth even though it’s the middle of the day and they almost never do that.

  
  
He’s squished in between them and laughs, wiggles, until they move apart and mama’s arms pull him close.

 

* * *

  
The next day mama insists that he join the children’s choir.

  
  
As soon as one of the girls has a nosebleed and mama is distracted by holding a handkerchief to her face and telling her to lean her head back, he leaves.

 

* * *

  
If he has to spend his day at the temple, he’d rather do it in his papa’s office where there’s a chair that spins and a secret bag of lemon drops in a desk drawer.

 

  
The singing had made him think of a song that Stumpy had taught them so he’s drawing a picture of the Dreifuss’s when he hears the door open.

 

He can see his mother's shoes, the hem of her dress, from his place beneath his papa's desk.

  
  
“Is he with you?”

  
  
Papa glances down at him and he’s sure he’s given him away but he says, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  
  
His papa doesn’t sound convincing but mama shuts the door again.

 

Papa pushes his chair back and leans down to peer under the desk at him.

  
  
"What have you been working so hard on down there?"

  
  
He hesitates to show him. Neither of his parents like it when he talks about his other life. But it is a good picture.

  
  
He hands it up to his papa, who studies it then laughs.

 

“Maybe you shouldn’t show this one to your mother.”

 

The picture goes into the drawer with the lemon drops.

 

* * *

"What do you think you’re doing? Put him down!"

  
The man doesn't heed his mother, just tightens his hold of his arm, so he calls him a _mudak_ , puts all the anger he feels into the word.

 

Mama's too mad at Stroud to scold him now for using such a bad word but she’s guaranteed to remember later and he’ll be in trouble. He isn’t supposed to speak Russian in front of others and he isn’t supposed to even know that word. (His parents don’t know that there’s a family down in the ramshackle town in the valley who still speak Russian at night too and who have two children not much older than him who are happy to share what they know for an apple a piece.)

  
  
"Let go of him.  _Now_."

  
  
"Oh, no, ma’am.  We’re gonna see his uncle."

 

He hates Stroud.

  
  
He had been the one who’d stolen him away in the night. He hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye to anyone or to get his little box of treasures--two cat's eye marbles, a shed snake skin carefully folded, a handful of nuts and bolts, a piece of green-tinted glass from a soda bottle--from their trailer.

 

He hates him too for the way he talks to his mama, the way he looks at her--like he is now.

 

He's almost relieved when the door to his papa's office opens and he steps out into the hallway.

 

“What’s going on out here?”

 

Only _almost_ because Papa is furious at being interrupted and he knows part of that anger will fall on him.

 

He can see the man with the glasses from last night is in his father’s office, turned in a chair and staring at them.  

 

Last night he'd woken up to the sound of someone pounding on the front door and his mother's footsteps hurrying down the stairs.  He'd followed and hidden on the landing to see mama open the door to reveal Stroud.  He'd been shocked when his papa appeared—with the man now in his office—and yelled at his mama instead of at Stroud, who'd woken up the house in the middle of the night.

 

Mama had been so angry when she came upstairs that she didn't even notice him in his hiding place.  He'd ventured downstairs, crouched outside the study, and heard enough.

 

All of this over a man like them.

  
  
"Your nephew’s been pokin’ his nose where he shouldn’t a’ been."

  
  
Stroud lets him go as soon as he’s done tattling.

  
  
He runs to his mother but he doesn’t press his face into her dress.

 

“Never touch my son again,” she warns.

 

Her arms draped around his shoulders make it easier to face Stroud and his father and say, “I just wanted to see him for myself.”

  
  
“Who?”

  
  
He knows his father thinks his mother shouldn’t know about these things, thinks _he_ shouldn’t know about them either--but he also knows that his father will punish Stroud later for letting him get that close to their secret.

  
  
“The man in the shed.”

  
  
“There’s a man in the shed?”

  
  
Another time her voice might have made him laugh. Now he nods, but she really isn’t asking him. She’s looking past him at his father.

 

  
“It’s nothing that concerns you.”

  
  
Sometimes his father sounds a lot like Stroud when he talks to mama.

  
  
He kneels down in front of him, to look him eye-to-eye so he knows what he is about to say is important.

  
  
“Stay away from the shed and that man,” he says. “He’s dangerous.”

 

“Yes, Uncle.”

 

His father frowns; mama pulls him closer.

 

"Why do you even have someone like that here?"

  
  
His father doesn't answer but he can tell there's more he wanted to say.

 

* * *

  
They shout and shout.

  
  
He can hear them through the door and through the pillow clutched over his head.

  
  
It’s their language but they use words they haven’t taught him yet.

  
  
It isn’t fair to have to hear but not to understand.

  
  
He had fought with Michael, had kicked him underneath the covers at night when he’d done something to deserve it that day, had pushed him to the ground more than once when yelling wouldn't do.

 

If brothers fight he supposes it's only natural for brothers and sisters to fight too.

 

Once there had been a couple--even younger than Libby--who'd joined the troupe for a few months. Runaways, everyone had said. Jonesy had said that they were cousins and Stumpy had said that was to be expected because everyone from Alabama were cousin-fuckers. But then he'd seen him there with his brother and told them not to tell their ma he'd taught them that word.

 

He mostly knows what that word means. It was whatever Rita Sue and Libby did after the show that wasn’t part of the advertised act. He supposes it’s worse that his parents are even more related than that couple was.

 

And Stumpy and Rita Sue fought all the time and they were married and had daughters and loved each other.

 

Maybe that's why his parents fight so much, because there's twice as much reason to.

 

* * *

  
When it happens, he knows.

  
  
He scoots out of bed and runs to the window to see lightning striking across the field.

  
  
He’s glad he went to see the man in the shed when he did.

 

* * *

  
His papa doesn’t look any different, but he knows he is.

  
  
It bothers him so much that two nights later he jabs his fork into the top of his father’s hand while he says grace before dinner.

  
  
It doesn’t go deep, just enough to break the skin, but papa makes a wounded noise and pulls his hand away, glaring down at him.

  
  
He isn’t surprised by what he sees.

  
  
He is surprised by how hard and how quickly his mama jerks him up out of his seat. He thinks she might hit him--until she follows his stare and sees the black well of blood on papa’s hand.

  
  
She lets him go and leaves the room without saying a word to either of them.

  
  
It might have been better if she had just hit him.

  
  
Papa looks at him and shakes his head. He holds out his hand for him to inspect.

  
  
“Satisfied?”

  
  
He reaches over and catches a drop of blood on his index finger, smears it against his thumb.

  
  
It looks like ink.

  
  
“You could have just asked.” His father seems almost amused by it now.

 

_Almost_.

 

He stands and looks down at him.

  
  
“Eat.” His tone doesn’t leave any room for argument.  “Then you can listen to the radio. Let me talk to your mother.”

 

He knows that _talking_ will really be more yelling and it must show on his face because his father says, “It’s fine.”

  
  
“I can listen to anything I want?”

  
  
“Just stay down here.”

 

* * *

  
The pop of the radio being turned off wakes him up.

 

His mama kneels down on the rug beside him.  She’s changed into her robe and her face is blotchy like she’s been crying, but she doesn’t look mad anymore, just maybe disappointed--and that’s worse.

  
  
“You can never do anything like that again.”

  
  
He nods but says, “I just wanted to see.”

  
  
“You always _just want to see_. But you can’t give in to every impulse you have.”

 

He frowns and she explains, “You can’t do whatever you want to, just because you feel like it.”

  
  
He nods and is on the verge of crying when he’s lifted off the floor and slung over his father’s shoulder.

  
  
“Bedtime, my little assassin.”

  
  
" _Alexsei_.  It's not something to joke about."

  
  
Hanging upside down over his father's back, he notices a stripe of black bleeding through the white of his shirt.

 

It could just be ink but it's a strange place for it.

 

* * *

  
He puts on his own pajamas and hears the shower turn on down the hall.

 

Mama comes into his room and asks if he’s ready to say his prayers.  They kneel beside his bed as usual but nothing comes to mind to say except, "I'm sorry," and that isn’t directed towards heaven.

 

"I know."

 

“Can I sleep in your room?”

 

She stands and offers him her hand.

 

He doesn't ask what happened to her door, why the jam next to the knob is splintered.

 

Her sheets are fresh and smell like the sun when they cuddle beneath them.

 

“Tell me a new word.”

 

“It seems like someone else has been teaching you new words.”

 

He should have known she wouldn’t forget. 

 

\--tbc--


End file.
